WARNING! Asthma Inhalers are Dangerous to Dogs!

This ends well, but is a scary story worth sharing:

A dogfriend of ours recently got hold of an asthma inhaler and, being a lab, quickly put it in her mouth and punctured it. It burst, releasing the contents which made a loud scary noise and she dropped it. We all laughed and thought nothing of it.

Shortly following the incident, the dog started acting funny (restless, didn't want a treat, didn't want to lie down, racing heartbeat). The first vet they called said not to worry and that she would be fine in a few hours. Well, 4 hours later, she was still acting funny with the racing heartbeat. The second vet they called said they should bring her in right away.

This dog had a heartrate of 200 bpm and had to stay overnight at a 24 hour animal hospital so she could be monitored and treated via IV. The next morning, her heartrate was 150. She rested at home that day with the IV still in place. By the 3rd day, she is now fine.

But I wanted to pass along what I learned: if a dog inhales from an asthma inhaler, it can cause a dangerously rapid heartbeat (200+ bpm) and then the potassium levels go whacky and they will crash and could die if untreated. This type of thing requires emergency medical attention right away to get them on an IV to stabilize their levels and to try and reduce the heartrate.

WOW! Thank you for sharing this important information. Do you think she got a humongous dose, or do you think ANY amount is dangerous?

My guess is a huge dose, especially for body weight.

Working nights with patients in the hospital, the respiratory pt's always got anxious and had resp crisis at night...

and then they were tachycardic and wired from the nebs and inhalers we gave them.....

And several of them are only to given twice daily, so the half life is LONG. Even regular inhalers are at least 4hrs on average.

She punctured it and immediately dropped it. We actually didn't realize she had gotten dosed at all. She is a 70 lb dog. The emergency vet said that pretty much any exposure requires a trip to the Vet. It took about 48 hours to clear her system. Given what happened, I would not wait to see if the symptoms emerge.

Oh it also mattered what kind of asthma medication it was because the contents vary. So we needed to track down the person with the inhaler to find out. In this case, it was albuterol.

Wow--had no idea. Thanks for sharing this info.

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She punctured it and immediately dropped it. We actually didn't realize she had gotten dosed at all. She is a 70 lb dog. The emergency vet said that pretty much any exposure requires a trip to the Vet. It took about 48 hours to clear her system. Given what happened, I would not wait to see if the symptoms emerge.

My dad had asthma... isn't it an aerosol that's under pressure? Dosage is measured in "puffs" but by puncturing the canister,it likely released all the bronchodilator at once.

Scary and good to know...

How scary! Thanks for the information.

6Girls wrote:

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She punctured it and immediately dropped it. We actually didn't realize she had gotten dosed at all. She is a 70 lb dog. The emergency vet said that pretty much any exposure requires a trip to the Vet. It took about 48 hours to clear her system. Given what happened, I would not wait to see if the symptoms emerge.

My dad had asthma... isn't it an aerosol that's under pressure? Dosage is measured in "puffs" but by puncturing the canister,it likely released all the bronchodilator at once.

I believe the aerosol delivery mechanism is mainly what caused his issue. Essentially, it was the same as "huffing" and could have happened with any pressurized container. Inhalers just happen to be perfect chewing size! Add some bronchodialator and Whammo!

I'm asthmatic and have inhalers that I'll set on a table, etc - it never dawned on me to worry about the dogs getting ahold of one but it sure makes sense!